In the Indian epic Ramayana, the father of Sita and father-in-law of Rama. In later Vedic texts, Janaka is stated to be a ruler of Videha, a region corresponding to parts of present-day Bihar and Nepal, and historians suggest a possibility of him having been a historical figure who may have lived and ruled between the ninth and seventh centuries BCE.
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An esoteric form of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara that emerged due to the absorption of Hindu elements into Buddhism, particularly within…
A non-Vedic ascetic movement that practised austerity and rejected domestic life. Shramana thinkers first conceptualised the philosophies of samsara (the…
A festival of the Sikh religion, which marks important events in the lives of the Sikh gurus, including birth anniversaries…
Earliest extant text from the Vedic corpus, dated roughly between 1700 and 1200 BCE. Like the other Vedas, the Rigveda…
Spirit deities central to the bhuta kola ritual performance of the Tulu people of Malenad, Karnataka. The deities in the…
The god of fire in the Vedic pantheon and one of the five elements of Indian cosmology. Agni is also…
Sanskrit for ‘pillar’, historically appearing in various contexts, including Vedic liturgy, Brahmanical mythology, and Brahmanical treatises on architecture, theatre and…
A term used in Tibetan and Tantric Buddhism for someone who embodied the perfect siddhi (psychic or supernatural abilities) through…